Maxbialystock

It is unarguable that Mookie struggles against breaking balls.

I'm not so sure. They were great in game 1, but used a lot of guys and gave up 3 in game 2 and 4 last night. Not a good trend for them.

Great walk by Hembree against Encarcion. 4 pitch walk is a lot better than a big hit or a walk on a 3-2 count..

I think moonslav has already provided a definitive explanation on why.

interesting. Farrell applies the 7 run rule to his ace after the fact and entirely because the Sox are back in this thing.

Easily forgiven in the heat of the moment..

We have a ball game, ladies and gents.

I love it. Both extra were off Bauer's very hittable fast ball. They never listen to me..

I hope you know that the great August run thus far is largely due to improved hitting. Yes, Ramirez struck out 4 times, but the lineup, entirely without any help from Brentz, scored 6 runs off a real contender for the AL Cy Young this year and a pretty bullpen.

Great point. With Brenz up, no way Sale gives up 7 runs in 3 innings.

Is fatigue a factor? He has pitched I think the most innings in MLB and we know he is consistently good on 6 days rest? Today his strike percentage is I think below 65%, Very low for him.

Bauer is more deceptive than Sale with a good knuckle curve, a decent change up that comes in at almost the same speed as the cut fastball, both in the mid-80's. But they break in opposite directions, greatly adding to deception. Moreland hit his 94 mph fastball for the dinger. If he is smart, he will use the fastball as a teaser, just out of the strike zone or at least on a corner. The breaking balls so far are killing us.

Moreland!

Two change ups, one for a bit, but I didn't see much drop in it.

All the hits in this inning were off fastballs and nary a change up has been seen.

A thought or two about Sale. When the Guardians scored 7 against him, I thought he might be telegraphing. I mean he has great stuff and often throw 75% strikes, which is a lot. He really goes after hitters, talent against talent, my best stuff against your best swing. But then I remembered what someone said on talksox, that a lot of pitching is about deception. Most of the dingers and big hits have been against that great fastball of his, which also has him leading the known universe in K's this year. Both are true even though reportedly he only throws 50% fastballs this year, down a lot from previous years. Maybe the problem is that he is becoming too predictable-- to the Guardians (who say him a lot in the AL Central division especially.

Spot on about Pomeranz. I agree HanRam was awful, but at least it was against A real ace and a pretty good bullpen. So I don't mind seeing DH'ing in the finale.

Please remove my Umps Thread from the top of the game threads, with my apology for sheer boneheadness.

Darn. Well said. 82 PA's ain't that small.

A head nod to stevencurry30 for some creative and clever thread titles. If anyone deserves a third straight win, he does.

Agree with spudboy. Insightful and succinct.

Absolutely. A win tonight is not inevitable both because of Sale's last start against the Guardians and his last start, period. The good news is that these Sox are looking more and more like a complete team, granted, with imperfections, but with a terrific overall effort. I defend Farrell a lot, but in this case the lion's share goes to the players, a tad to Dombrowski, and a tad to Farrell.

They do make mistakes, but I have to say I am very pro-ump and anti-technology which is slowly but surely taking over the game at the expense, in my opinion, of significantly reducing the human element which is the essence of baseball. The upside of the replays, I freely acknowledge, is avoidance of managerial tirades. This probably saves time, but I'm not so sure because overall games keep getting longer. Plus I am probably one of the very few who enjoys the adroitness of good umpires moving quickly to be in the right position to make a call. So, me, I don't mind a slight miscall on a very close play--it's part of the game. And I resent the sometimes lengthy time it takes NYC to finally decide a really close play was right or wrong. I also think those superimposed strike zones to be pernicious even though I look at them often to see where a pitch went. Because of them, we assume that most umpires are just plain lousy on balls and strikes when they really are not. I myself use them to determine whether our pitchers are getting more or fewer calls than the opposition when in fact the differences between balls and strikes can be quite small. I am, on the other hand, fine with MLB allowing replays to improve umpire performance after the the game is over. That includes videos of all balls and strikes. Teams use videos endlessly to spot weaknesses. Meanwhile umpires have virtually no authority to speed up games, mostly because MLB rules and accepted norms tolerate an enormous amount of dawdling by pitchers and batters, visits to the mound by catchers, coaches, managers and sometimes infielders. Now here's the grabber. I disagree that somehow umpires should be invisible so the focus can be solely on the talents and skills of the players. In fact, they are more efficient, focused and professional than most players and their active presence is ubiquitous. They call maybe 300 pitches a game. 1st and 3D base umps call checked swings. They call fouls, hits, catches, tags (by fielders and base runners). They do not dawdle endlessly. They try to stop fights. They take a lot of abuse from fans, managers, hitters, and, less often, from pitchers. They all have to get behind the plate every fourth game and make a ton of calls, including important plays, and risk getting hit by a foul ball or errant pitch with less protective gear than catchers. The other night the home plate umpire conscientiously stood behind the plate for Kelly's warm up pitches and got hit in the mask by an errant 100 mph fastball. he almost had to be taken from the game, but stuck around as a base umpire. That is professionalism of a pretty high order. Players, it has to be said, are terrific athletes. But their entertainment value is what makes MLB profitable despite their enormous salaries. We think of movies stars as enormously wealthy, but no one on talksox can name a single movie star being paid $31M a year for seven years regardless of their performance or even availability. You want to see professionalism on the baseball field? Watch the umpires. They make the game better and are an essential--including their human fallibility--part of it. My bad, especially with curry30 doing so well. I'm happy if Youk moves this to the regular forum, which was obviously my intent, or even kills it.

To be fair, the first HBP was by the Detroit starter, who hit Sanchez, a hot bat. But this loaded the bases, bringing up Judge. It worked because Judge struck out. So the Tigers aren't completely blameless in my view.

I apologize for all the Yankees game commentary, and I do realize tonight is another big game for the Sox. I notice that the lineup is exactly the same as last night's except for Leon catching and batting 8th. No Davis yet, but he could be a terrific pitch runner. Nunez. 2b Betts. RF Benintendi. CF Ramirez. DH Devers. 3b Bogaerts. SS Moreland 1b Leon. C Holt. LF